People Watching TV Are Also Doing Other Things (Marketing Pilgrim)According to Nielsen, many people don't just watch TV, they are also using a mobile device to multitask. Mobile is no longer just for techies. 50% of us are walking around with smartphones and 20% of people in the U.S. who have a TV also have a tablet. That’s amazing. Even more amazing, 40% of Americans use their mobile device while they watch TV every day. Yes, that’s what they’re saying, every day. When you pull back to "at least once a month," the number more than doubles to 85%.Nielsen

The takeaway here is that TV time is a good time to promote your product. Shoppers are relaxed, part of their brain is bored and they have the means to research and buy— laying right on their lap. All you have to do is figure out how to get their attention.

Let the "Showrooming" Begin! (IDC via Internet Retailer)This holiday season, 48 million shoppers (about 20% of the U.S. adult population) will use their smartphones to compare prices and research products while shopping in stores, a practice known as "showrooming," according to IDC. This represents a 134% increase from 2011 when 20.5 million shoppers engaged in showrooming. IDC forecasts the number of showrooming shoppers will grow to 59 million next year, 69 million in 2014 and 78 million in 2015. This year, showrooming will influence $700 million to $1.7 billion in holiday retail purchases. Big-ticket items, in particular those that consumers can easily evaluate by reading descriptions, specifications, ratings and reviews, will be the biggest target of consumers shopping with smartphones.

Mobile Shoppers Don’t Just Compare Prices (Vibes via Internet Retailer)Consumers who use their mobile phones when shopping are doing more than just comparing prices. They’re gathering more information on products and in the process sometimes using a retailer’s site or app, finds a new study from mobile marketing and technology firm Vibes. Retailers that operate physical stores need not fear "showrooming," where consumers in stores compare prices between retailers and later make a purchase online or through mobile commerce. Rather, Vibes points to the full spectrum of activities of mobile shoppers in stores and concludes that retailers armed with their own sites, apps and deals can convince shoppers to buy in-store. While 54% of mobile shoppers have compared prices in-store, 51% have looked up a product review, 45% have scanned a QR code or bar code for more information, 33% have researched a product on the store’s web site and 28% have used a retailer’s app in-store.

The Rise Of The Mobile Shopper: Here's How To Win (BI Intelligence)In this report, we'll first gauge the size of the mobile commerce opportunity in dollar terms, and then look at some of the top mobile commerce trends. The bottom-line: Purchases from mobile devices are on track to account for $154 million in Cyber Monday sales this year, and over $10 billion in 2012 sales, according to BII forecasts based on comScore data. Tablet consumers spend more per transaction than PC-based shoppers. Tablets' role in commerce will drive more brands and retailers to design tablet-optimized sites and campaigns. Mobile payment apps will come to serve as full-service shopping suites, incorporating loyalty programs and couponing. Gamification-influenced marketing campaigns will be increasingly influential.

Mobile Means More (Success)Mobile phones are changing how people buy, so you need to adjust how you market now to gain a huge business advantage. This “digital layer” that connects customers, merchants all the time, has resulted in a sea change in customer behavior that is shaking up how, when, and why people buy. This transition to mobile can be overwhelming. Where do you start if you’re self-employed or have less than $100 to invest? Here are three actions to take right away:

Make your website mobile-friendly

Make buying from you a game

Offer customers the ability to stay in touch

Mobile is no longer the future of business. It’s an option that consumers want now.

The Smartphone War Is Down To Two Players (Gartner via All Things Digital)Apple shipped 36.2% more smartphones in the third quarter of 2012 than it did in the same quarter a year earlier, but that wasn’t enough to protect its market share from an unceasing Android onslaught. Apple’s share of the global mobile OS market slipped to 13.9% from 15% in the third quarter, according to Gartner. Meanwhile, Android’s market share rose to 72.4% from 52.5% a year earlier. Remarkable that Apple can increase iPhone sales by a full third year over year and still lose traction to Google’s mobile platform. Android is a juggernaut. And the rest of industry? Floundering in the market’s shallows, but here's the race to be third.

Is Apple's iMessage Killing Texting After All? (Read Write Mobile)We recently reported that texting was on the decline. In the third quarter of this year, the number of text messages people sent to one another in the U.S. dropped by about 2%. That may not sound like much, but considering how fast texting had been growing, the fact that the number declined at all is significant. It's not that people are any less connected or firing off any fewer messages. They're just doing it in different ways. One of the biggest culprits is indeed iMessage, which operates exactly as text messages do, but bypasses the carrier entirely for Apple to Apple communications. Another culprit is Facebook's Messenger app. It turns Facebook's desktop IM feature into a very SMS-like communication method, again without having to route messages through the mobile provider.

Mobile Healthcare Faces The Future ([x]cube LABS via Read Write Mobile)One industry has been surprisingly slow to embrace the benefits of mobile: healthcare. That said, we are starting to see progress in mHealth adoption. According to researchers, 62% of doctors use a tablet in some shape or form and 71% of nurses use a smartphone at work. The mHealth industry is forecast to be a $11.8 billion market by 2018. Mobile healthcare is about more than just how doctors and nurses operate on a day-to-day basis. Mobile technology promises to contribute to wellness, preventive care, personal health records, communication with physicians, diet tracking, prescription reminders and many other health-related improvements. For instance, 30% of smartphone users are expected to use wellness apps in one form or another by 2015. By that year, analysts predict there will be nearly two billion smartphone users on the planet. You do the math.